Frances Fitzgerald, in her famous study of American school textbooks, summarized the message of these books: “The United States has been a kind of Salvation Army to the rest of the world: throughout history it had done little but dispense benefits to poor, ignorant, and diseased countries. The U.S. always acted in a disinterested fashion, always from the highest of motives; it gave, never took.” Now read on . . .

A Brief Introduction to American Perfidy From a 1962# State Department Publication. The State Department/CIA Handbook for False Flag Operations is Nicely Summarised in a De-classified, originally Top Secret Document, issued by the Joint Chiefs of Staff re Cuba. See: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf To get the full flavour of American duplicity the document is best read in full, but the essence is to be found at page 10 ‘Pretexts to Justify Military Intervention.’ # Nothing has changed since.

The Political Theory Behind Recent Actions Full Spectrum Dominance This concept had its origins in the Pentagon’s Defence Planning Guidance for the Fiscal Years 1994-1999: See http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/excerpts-from-pentagon-s-plan-prevent-the-re-emergence-of-a-new-rival.html The document includes the following contribution from Paul Wolfowitz: “Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.”

This US Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop. Its objective – A One Super-Power World A 1992 Pentagon Document Outlines Ways to Thwart Challenges to the Primacy of America. See: http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/wolfowitz1992.htm

A plutocracy where the senators and representatives are bought, owned by and represent only the interests of the richest Americans: the Koch brothers, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison et al. For any who might doubt what seems to be so blatantly obvious there is a Gallup Poll survey which shows that over a period of 30 years more than 60% of Americans have consistently believed that wealth should be more evenly distributed among the people. http://www.gallup.com/poll/182987/americans-continue-say-wealth-distribution-unfair.aspx Yet so indifferent is the House of Congress to the concerns of the people at large that over the same period the gap between the richest and the rest has grown exponentially. Congress represents the rich – period. Just Google ‘us wealth gap history’ for the details.

The Theory in Action But Wolfowitz was merely refining American policy for the late Twentieth Century. From its very inception the Presidents of the USA had been predisposed to military intervention as the method of choice for territorial gain or economic advantage. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations#1990.E2.80.931999) although only Teddy Roosevelt expressed the preference quite so blatantly. “No triumph of peace can equal the armed triumph of war. In strict confidence …I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one.”

A Word of Caution When the formation of the Viet Cong in response to the abuses of America’s placeman President Diem# marked the first stirrings of the Vietnam War, it was President Eisenhower, a man who knew a thing or two about war, who in 1961 warned, “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence . . . by the military/industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” # Later assassinated by the CIA with the approval of President-to-be Johnson see post A.

The warning went unheeded, the complex flourished and grew strong, and in 1987 G F Kennan US Ambassador to both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia defined the implications: “The emergence of a military/industrial establishment of such dimensions had become the greatest factor in our economic life . . . Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean**, the American military/industrial complex would have to go on substantially unchanged until some other adversary could be invented.” **As it did just four years later.

America’s many subversive and criminal interventions abroad, and the duplicity and mendacity employed in pursuing them, are well documented and beyond challenge, but see Appendix below for a choice selection.

In the Twilight Zone in which the US State Department operates, however, none of these events ever took place. 13/2/15 State Dept Press Briefing – department spokesperson Jen Psaki. Psaki: As a matter of longstanding policy, the United States does not (sic) support political transitions by non-constitutional means. Political transitions must be democratic, constitutional, peaceful, and legal. Matt Lee (AP): Sorry. The US has – whoa, whoa, whoa – the US has a longstanding practice of not promoting – What did you say? How longstanding is that? I would – in particular in South and Latin America, that is not a longstanding practice.

Such double-think on the part of US Officials has a long and dishonourable history. In 1965 (the Vietnam War) when Arthur Sylvester, American Assistant Defence Secretary for Public Affairs was being pressed by journalists, he told them that they had a patriotic duty todisseminate only information that made the United States look good. When one of the reporters exclaimed: “Surely, Arthur, you don’t expect the American press to be handmaidens of government,” Sylvester replied: “That’s exactly what I expect,” adding: “Look, if you think any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you’re stupid. Did you hear that? Stupid.” A contemporary, who was a journalist in the true sense of the word (as opposed to those of today who are little more than stenographers who purvey the official White House narrative) reported the exchange in The Administration and the Press at https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=110&dat=19660513&id=C7xaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LFADAAAAIBAJ&pg=6187,2674443&hl=en

20/3/15 In another example of the double-think, double-speak that characterises so much that emanates from the White House, Rathke the spokesman can be heard being reduced to incoherence in attempting to deal with questions concerning the US/NATO war game Atlantic Resolve. http://rt.com/news/242777-nato-russia-military-drills/

Or are all administration men so brainwashed that they believe their own claptrap? See George W Bush “How do I respond when I see that in some Islamic countries there is vitriolic hatred for America? I’ll tell you how I respond: I’m amazed. I’m amazed that there’s such misunderstanding of what our country is about that people would hate us. I am – like most Americans, I just can’t believe it because I know how good we are.” Thank you George – now take your pills. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bush_text101101.html

That the military/industrial/Wall Street complex is (like quantitative easing and many of Washington’s overseas aid programmes) just one, but perhaps the most lucrative, of America’s welfare programmes for the super-rich is scarcely a matter for debate – for detailed comment see Post A.

It is though reassuring to see a little informed criticism coming from within the Empire. Karen Kwiatkowski, retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, Pentagon desk officer and a variety of roles for the National Security Agency. “What the US Govt is focused on is putting arms out there and creating buyers for those arms. The US taxpayer subsidises these foreign weapons sales, so we’re always out there. Our Govt is always looking for places to market out weapons. When you look at what we do in foreign policy as a way of creating a market for our weapons, we’re actually not doing that bad. That’s where we spend our money that’s where our intellectual power goes, not in solving crises which are between ethnic groups or religious groups, not in promoting good governance. That’s not our expertise and we don’t spend time and money on that. We spend time and money in creating consumers for our weapons.” http://rt.com/bulletin-board/244217-rtnews-march-26-12msk/ From 5.10 onwards

There was a time when the men of the United States Regular Federal Forces would have been ‘over there’ in the thick of the action, but as the country sickened at the sight of the coffins coming home the Pentagon began to keep the returning dead out of sight. http://rense.com/general44/dead.htm

Not that the US administration itself has ever been particularly perturbed by such matters. When the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki was planned, the US High Command was informed that American POWs were being held in the city. Its response was: “Targets previously assigned for Centerboard (the atomic bomb attack) remain unchanged.” Howard Zinn The Bomb

The privatisation of America’s wars by outsourcing to Corporate America was, however, a blindingly brilliant solution to this problem: a dead mercenary returning home was no embarrassment to Washington. It was also another ‘nice little earner’ for the super-rich who owned the corporations, and it marked the arrival and use globally of private mercenary armies. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/a-blackwater-world-order/ Blackwater was founded by Erik Prince http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince Prince sold Blackwater — now called Academi — in 2010 to private investors following years of lawsuits, congressional investigations and criminal complaints against the company. He subsequently moved his family to Abu Dhabi where he now lives and runs a private army to protect the Abu Dhabi plutocrats. Think good old Oliver (Ollie) North in spades.

The other option was to fund and arm ‘freedom fighters’ in the target country. This can be dangerous though as President Carter found out to his country’s cost – see appendix below. The risks are two-found. The group thus armed may turn round and bite the hand that armed it (Carter), and the target country is likely to be left awash with weapons that fall into the wrong hand (almost anywhere in the Middle East), but America never learns from the past

And wherever there is the prospect of stoking the fires of war, there you will find John McCain. In this case advocating arming the ISIS ‘freedom fighters’ with pretty well anything they ask for, http://bluenationreview.com/john-mccain-circa-2013-arm-isis/ Google ‘john mccain with isis’ and you’ll find photos of John with his ‘freedom fighting’ buddies. The debate rages as to how many of these might be ISIS or Al Qaeda fighters. I don’t know and it seems pretty clear from the debate that McCain didn’t know. But John’s not fussy who he buddies up with. A year or so later and you’ll find him in the Ukraine sharing the limelight with his neo-Nazi pals – see post E. He’s a walking, war-mongering pandemic in his own right.

Fast forward a year or so and the politicians of the west can be found wondering where on earth this ISIS lot sprang from and wringing their hands at the threat they present. Obama Sept 2014 “Left unchecked these groups could pose a threat beyond that region https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/10/statement-president-isil-1John Kerry Sept 2014 “ISIL simply poses a threat to the people of Iraq and Syria and the broader Middle East, and if left unchecked, these terrorists certainly would pose a growing threat beyond the region because they have already promised to.” http://london.usembassy.gov/midest508.html

The Americans blunder around the globe like a herd of bulls in a china shop and then profess astonishment that they leave a world of shattered porcelain behind them.

A New Way to Justify Intervention In more recent years, as all the old ‘Pretexts to Justify Military Intervention,’ began to seem a little shop-soiled, the USA found a new and particularly nasty one by creating, funding, subverting or infiltrating NGOs and co-opting ‘Human Rights’ to engineer or falsify scam ‘atrocities’ to justify intervention and regime change.

The advantage that such organisations have is that they are able to get people on the ground first and can dominate coverage of an event. In their reporting of Gadaffi’s alleged use of jet planes to attack his own people they used the account of a Libyan citizen who when asked for the proof that the allegation was true could provide none.

And now, following US intervention we have Libya a failed state and the chosen point of embarkation for the thousands of refugees flooding across the Mediterranean. But that’s Europe’s problem isn’t it? As are the economic losses mounting up as a result of sanctions against Russia. America as usual is well out of it.

In a prescient production in 1990 the BBC anticipated precisely the refugee problem Europe now faces. It’s available in full on YouTube, but is the scene in the final clip going to be the end result? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQh4tJ6xROE

Appendix

What follows are no more than brief abstracts or shorthand references to matters which are covered in full, with appropriate references and quotations in Post A

America in Foreign Affairs Duplicity, Mendacity and Crimes Against Humanity

L B Johnson during Vietnam War 1963 Ordered CIA organised assassination of South Vietnam’s President Diem. 1964 ordered the fabrication of the ‘Second Incident’ in Gulf of Tonkin. Lied to American people and used incident to justify extension of war. R Nixon Too many criminal misdemeanors to mention – see Post A. Gerald Ford/Kissinger 1975 East Timor ethnic cleansing, massacres, rapes and torture by Indonesia. Weapons almost wholly supplied by the US, and action taken with US knowledge and approval. Public denials of implication were lies.J Carter 1979 secretly funded and approved creation of an international terrorist (sic) movement, the mujahideen, to help destabilise USSR. On 9/11 it also brought down the twin towers. Reagan Lied re Iran/Contra affairG W Bush, Rumsfeld et al Lies prior to Iraq war War alleging Iraq’s possession variously of uranium, WMD, cruise missiles, botulin, sarin, nerve agents. Constant references to ‘solid evidence . . . irrefutable, undeniable, incontrovertible evidence . . . overwhelming abundance of evidence.’ All false.

American Subversive and Criminal Interventions Abroad Quotes from CIA Operatives We wanted to institute a terror campaign to terrify . . . we didn’t give a hoot about Democracy . . . we manipulated and organized the overthrow of functioning constitutional democracies in other countries . . . We organized secret armies and directed them to fight in just about every continent in the world . . . we organise and funded death squads . . . sometimes things have to be changed in a rather ugly way . . . we’ll intervene whenever it’s in our national security interests to intervene and if you don’t like it, lump it. Get used to it world, we’re not going to put up with any nonsense. Major Joseph Blair ofthe School of the Americas The school taught interrogation and torture techniques. We used torture and killing . . . if you can’t get that person to shut up or stop what they’re doing you simply assassinate them with one of your death squads.

American Interventions Abroad Since 1945 the US has intervened directly or indirectly, armed or otherwise, in the internal affairs of more than forty sovereign nations, generally to protect or further the interests of Corporate America. Following these interventions governments are replaced by dictators or other pro-Washington leaders. Examples taken from South America (known contemptuously to the US as the backyard) are: Guatemala Dictator Carlos Armas . . . secret police force . . . Latin America’s first death squad . . . imprisonment, torture and execution for all who opposed him or expressed dissent. This established the pattern for all future interventions. Dictator Rios Montt . . . human rights abuses and genocide against the indigenous population. His guns and helicopters came from the US. More than 200,000 Guatemalans died. Brazil Washington instigated coup d’état led by army officers corrupted by the CIA. Repressive military regimes ruled for the next twenty years. Chile President Allende’s policies threatened US Corporate interests. 15/10/1970 CIA cable “It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup . . . It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the US Govt and American hand be well hidden.” Allende overthrown in the Washington backed coup d’etat. Pinochet in power: secret prisons . . . atrocities that included torture, rape, arbitrary execution . . . thousands were killed or simply ‘disappeared,’ their names well documented by human rights organisations. Kissinger lied and denied any US involvement.

By the late 1970s most of Latin America was controlled by dictators like Pinochet all backed directly or indirectly by Washington whose men were taught at the US funded School of the Americas – see above. Officially it taught human values such as respect for human rights, but the internet is awash with documented accounts of the atrocities committed by its ‘graduates.’

Throughout Latin America the Guatemala/Chile story was repeated, invariably with support and funding from Washington: in El Salvador where the El Mozote massacre took place, in Uruguay, in Nicaragua and so it went on.

And Elsewhere? Spanish Civil War Material support for the fascist cause from Corporate America. Iran 1953 America and UK fomented and supported coup that ousted democratically elected Prime Minister Mosaddegh. Congo 1961 CIA instigated murder of Lumumba, democratically elected Prime Minister. Greece 1964 President Johnson to Greek Ambassador protesting against NATO base on Cyprus. “Fuck your parliament and your constitution . . . If your Prime Minister gives me talk about democracy, parliament, and constitution, he, his parliament, and his constitution may not last very long.” 1967 USA supported and endorsed the restoration of the first fascist government in Europe since the war The regime of the colonels followed, political freedoms and civil rights were suppressed, freedom of the press was suspended, torture and violation of human rights was routine. Grenada 1983 CIA instigated violence to destabilise the Government and procure the murder of Maurice Bishop the PM – US invaded.

And so it continued in No Gun Ri *** Cambodia *** My Lai *** Fallujah***Haditha*** Bagram Airbase***Abu Ghraib*** Guantanamo Bay***at the ‘black sites’ of extraordinary rendition where torture was outsourced, and in the arbitrary killing of the innocent by the use of drones.